Jenny Cavnar Profile - Host and Sideline Reporter for the Colorado Rockies

The Colorado Rockies are not known for making progressive decisions, and - partially because of this - as a small market team they do not receive consistent national attention. However, the team captured the media’s eyes and ears in 2018, when pre- and post- game host Jenny Cavnar became the first woman in 25 years to call play-by-play for a televised MLB broadcast. The Colorado native and CSU graduate made a name for herself among Rockies fans as a colorful optimist, managing to find light in the dungeon of the NL West. She may not have had any impact upon the on-field performance, but on April 23, 2018, she brought her fresh energy and new perspective to the booth that made me proud to be a fan of the purple and grey.

Cavnar began her baseball education as a young girl, following her father’s successful high school coaching career step-by-step. In hope of aligning that passion with work, a realization occurred while watching MNF when the cameras cut to sideline reporter Melissa Stark. “It was the first time I saw someone like me doing something that I enjoy doing,” she told 5280 Magazine. “[Broadcasting] was a match in my brain, and from that moment on I hit the ground running.” She began at Colorado State, covering school sports including side-line reporting for Rams’ football broadcasts. From there she found herself in Flint, Michigan, working for WJRT-TV covering mostly high school and collegiate sports before moving to California. After a couple years treading water, she landed a full-time job hosting pre- and post- game coverage for the Padres. When the opportunity came to return home, she pounced at the chance.

“Fire off the fountains, she's gone!”

That was Cavnar’s first home run call, at the sound of which the booth absolutely imploded. Jeff Huson and Ryan Spilborghs, the longtime Rockies color-duo, nearly stepped on her moment in jumping to congratulations; nonetheless, Cavnar’s call had a significant impact on fans. She brings hope to young girls everywhere that dream of joining a major sports broadcast booth, but has yet herself to be given the full opportunity she deserves to call baseball games. Save the rare Drew Goodman off-day, Cavnar is relegated to frivolous pre- and post- game coverage, which frankly, because of cohost Spilborghs’ likeminded positivity can be almost unnerving after watching loss upon devastating late-inning loss.

Cavnar’s knowledge of the game is superb, evidenced by her comfortability in the booth and her confidence as a sideline reporter. I do feel she is limited in her role, in part due to Goodman’s stranglehold on the job… he’s been named the state’s Sportscaster of the Year 13 times and is not going anywhere. However, I always enjoy Cavnar’s passion for the game, which ignites something youthful and hopeful into the broadcast that encourages fans to dream alongside her. That unique inflection and modulation offer a different approach to Goodman’s more casual and patient pxp that might make them an interesting tandem next to Huson or Spilborghs.

I see Cavnar’s love for the sport as very similar to mine, one that burns deeply from days of following my father coach baseball… a love that sees beyond win-loss records. Thankfully, I was not raised a Dodgers fan or a Yankees fan or (dear God) a Red Sox fan; I don’t carry a selfish crave for championships around like my sports teams are inherently more important than the rest, or go on critizicing my team from a place of such privilege that I lose sight of the reality of sports. There’s something in Jenny’s unwavering charm, her consistently cheerful demeanor that reminds us that we’re all lucky just to be alive, sitting in our homes, watching baseball. It’s difficult for some broadcasters to breach that fourth wall, to come to grips with the painful truth that sports are more about losing than winning, and that baseball is at its best when it is fun. That is where Cavnar excels; from a space (literally speaking, Coors Field) that doesn’t quite turn sports into mythology or players into heroes, but where baseball exists purely for entertainment.